Berkeley Heights unlikely to join shared emergency dispatch service

Berkeley Heights is unlikely to join a shared emergency dispatch service with New Providence, Millburn and Summit, Mayor Joseph Bruno said at a May 22 council meeting.

Bruno said, “we know what we want to do,” after Councilman Bob Woodruff asked the council to tell residents about an apparently unspoken decision on the issue they had reached.

“We’re not saying out loud but we know what we want to do. Quite frankly, the shared services does not give us any reduction in fees. We need to discuss why we go there,” Bruno said.

Township Administrator Amey Upchurch said on Thursday that Berkeley Heights had been considering the dispatch merger well before it was officially presented to them on April 24 by Summit and New Providence officials.

Upchurch said the township “looked internally at our cost structure and externally” at the proposal’s structure in deciding how to address the opportunity. The township is also forced into an inflexible position with regards to budgeting its own emergency services since the shared services program will not take effect for at least a year, Upchurch said.

New Providence had been discussing the shared dispatch program for several weeks, but Borough Administrator Doug Marvin said at the April presentation to Berkeley Heights that “the idea started in 2006” and that subsequent “studies found it would make sense to combine resources.”

The plan calls to have one building in the region that pools resources and employees to more efficiently dispatch emergency services and personnel as events warrant, Summit Administrator Chris Connor said.

Marvin said that sharing the dispatch center would allow for law enforcement to better pursue and more quickly locate suspects traveling between the municipalities.

Berkeley Heights will officially announce its intentions at a council meeting in June, Upchurch said.